Why is D.C. blocking wind energy?

Wouldn’t it be amazing if we could magically lower energy prices for everyone in Iowa, lower taxes and pour billions of dollars into investments that created jobs and expanded the middle class?

Oh wait, we do make that happen. But not with magic. We lead the nation in wind power. Wind is what has made Iowa’s energy costs 24% lower than the national average. Wind energy is why Iowa has saved $1.5 billion in combined state and local tax revenue in the past decade. And not to forget, Iowa has had $23 billion invested since 2016 for wind projects.

Perhaps the magic is that it was never a partisan issue. Chuck Grassley first wrote a production tax credit for wind in 1982. Our skies transformed as towers rose all over our state, to the point where we generate over two-thirds of our own power and generate thousands of jobs from the industry. But in the increasing polarization of politics, this boon to our state has been cut off, for reasons I don’t quite understand. Subsidies to fossil fuel companies are never cut off when a different party is in the White House. Yet tax credits for wind and solar have disappeared as part of a vanishing act to serve an economic and energy policy that doesn’t make sense for Iowans.

The illusion worth dispelling is those who oppose these types of projects. It’s not farmers, who sign the leases and cash the checks. It’s not workers who get paid to build and maintain the wind farms. It’s usually fossil fuel industry plants who don’t understand what’s going on in Iowa. Fifty- seven of our 99 counties are losing population, and that dynamic means a smaller tax base and less money for services. Wind and solar aren’t magic tricks for rural Iowa, they are a reliable revenue source.

The sleight of hand has so many layers because it isn’t just the vanishing wind and solar tax credits or misinformation that forms the basis of legislation. As U.S. taxpayers, we’re paying $2 billion for developers to walk away from wind energy projects. We’re writing checks to make jobs disappear to give coal and gas unequal show time. If you’re looking for wasted taxpayer dollars, there’s the con job.

Iowa took this path not because it’s magic, but because it’s good policy that looks miraculous from the outside. What else can decrease energy prices, lower taxes, protect rural Iowa, create thousands of jobs, and billions in investments without asking us to choose a side? We built the best wind economy in the country by keeping it boring and bipartisan. What’s happening in Washington isn’t a disagreement about energy policy, it’s an expensive trick, and Iowans are paying for the show.

MikeCarberry has 25 years of experience in renewable energy policy advocacy. He runs the Iowa Citybased consulting firm Green State Solutions, specializing in renewable energy and regenerative agriculture on the state and national level.

MIKE CARBERRY